


safe

by BlueMoonHound



Series: Lucretia [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Drinking to Cope, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Memory Alteration, Mental Breakdown, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, The Bulwark Staff, and its thrall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 16:30:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12845079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMoonHound/pseuds/BlueMoonHound
Summary: Angus tells lucretia about the cookie incident. Lucretia drinks some alcoholic beverages. A staff croons about safety.





	safe

The bulwark staff sings her to sleep some nights. For a few months after collecting it, she left it in another room, because better safe than sorry – she did create it, but the thrall was still there, and she knew it was something she could hypothetically submit to. But in the end, when things were too much, she found comfort in its words of peace and safety, and everynight it moved closer, till on really bad days she would sleep on the floor with it in her hands, wood against skin. She created it. Of course she could overpower it. It belonged to her and her alone.

She had sent the boys planetside to collect something she didn't trust with anyone else, or maybe she had just noticed how antsy they had been getting-- figuring out what to do about the next relic, it was taking forever, and she needed a distraction. It's three in the morning and she's sitting at the base of her throne, waiting. She gets the feeling they won't be coming back tonight, but she doesn't want to go to her room. She didn't want to sleep.

Lucretia got some wine out of her office and sat down with it, legs curled under her on her throne and pouring herself a glass. (A throne! So rediculous, in hindsight, what was she thinking? She's not that special.) She drank a swallow of wine in the least dignified manner possible. _No one's here to worry about your drinking habits, Lucretia. Why'd you even bother to get a glass?_

She keeps using the glass. She still has the glass half an hour later when she's finished this bottle and fetched a second. The bulwark staff croons about safety. Nothing is safe. She leans against her throne and a little bit of wine runs out of her cup and onto the floor. Whoops.

“You can shut up about warmth and happy feelings, you know,” she mutters. “S'not going to get better. Not yet. You're not strong enough.”

The staff murmurs a lullaby, all but unable to hear her.

“Shut up.” She downs another glass of wine. Her hands are trembling. Lucretia, you should stop. You've had a bottle and a half already. It's not good for you, especially at your age.

“Shut up!” she giggles. Her age? Which one? Thirty seven? A hundred and fifty seven? Or just fifty seven? Which one, which one? She has so many ages, lost to planar systems no longer existing and moon elf liches dancing on podiums. She realizes that she had thought that herself – it wasn't the staff, why would the staff know or care about wine?

Someone enters the room. Lucretia pushes herself up a little. “Who is it?”

That was a little more slurred than she intended.

“It's me, Angus-- Madam director, I have some things I'd like to talk to you about.” He takes a step towards the dais.

Lucretia's head buzzes. It reminds her of voidfish static, but she knows that's not the issue. “What about?”

“Well, your staff. It has a thrall to it. Do you know that?”

Angus is reaching for her staff. Lucretia grabs it off the floor in front of her and pulls it to her side, knocking back the rest of her glass of wine and putting down the glass without paying much attention to it. “Angus, you need to stay away from that, it's not for children.” She stumbles to her feet, leaning on the staff. “It's mine for a reason.”

“Miss, I've dealt with magical objects before, I'm training to be a wizard! Can I just look at it? I'm on the trail of an interesting mystery, and...”

“Nope.” She pops the p, sitting down on the throne with a light thud. Angus cowers.

“Madam director, are you okay?”

She laughs. “I'm fine, Angus. Don't worry about me.”

He has a serious look in his eye.

“Are you drunk?”

“I'm very tired.”

“Ma'am, those aren't mutually exclusive--”

“I'm fine, Angus.” She drinks some more wine. It takes a lot more than a few bottles to get her truly smashed. She learned that the hard way, unfortunately: If you drink your problems away too many times, your body gets used to it. She's aware she's a little tipsy, though.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She realizes Angus has been standing at attention the entire time they had been talking, clutching a little notebook to his chest.(Like she used to do! Adorable. She has a headache now, just from thinking about it.) She takes her staff in hand and summons a chair.

“Wow, I didn't know you could do that!” Angus exclaims, sitting down.

“I'm a woman of many secrets, Angus.” So many. She drinks more wine.

“Why are you even awake? It's four in the morning.”

“I woke up and I couldn't fall asleep again, so I'd figure I'd… Oh yeah, I wanted to tell you something. The door was open, so I thought I'd see if you were awake, and here I am!”

“Do tell, then.”

“The other day I was in magic lessons with Taako and he was going to fix up some macarons I made and blasted letters into the wall instead. L, U, P. luhp? Loop? I'm not sure if it's a word or an acronym, actually. Taako said he didn't know.”

Lup? Lup- Lup's umbrella, it's Lup's – What does that mean? What could that possibly mean? Was Lup all right? Was she alive? Was she dead and trying to speak from another plane? _Lup is a lich, Lucretia, she's not going to the astral plane anytime soon_ – It's Lup's staff. Does Taako remember something? Was he hiding something? These were questions she couldn't ask Angus-- Angus would recognise voidfish static, he had been chasing the bureau's trail for so long –

She forces herself into composure, buzzing with nervous energy. Angus need not know. Angus cannot know. She could tell the boy could see the difference in her mannerisms, though. Not much she could do about that. “Show me.”

“Is this serious, ma'am?”

Lucretia stands up, leaning on her staff. Thank gods for her staff. (It croons at her, wouldn't it be easier to just cut yourself off from the world? Wouldn't it be safer?) “It's a matter of Taako's safety, yes. Umbra staffs are extremely rare, we don't know how powerful that one is.”

Angus led Lucretia down the hall, across the quad, and into the cafeteria. Sure enough, burned (of course it would be burned!) into the wall was Lup's name, plain as day. She chewed her lip for a moment, and then with a wave of her staff, removed the lettering from the wall.

“Madam director, that's important evidence!” Angus exclaims, sounding hurt.

“If anyone doesn't believe it was there you can send them to me. I...” she realizes she doesn't have a good explanation for why she banished it. “I need to think about this. Good night.”

She turns around, as regally as possible, and heads back towards the chambers she made for herself. The world is spinning more than it ought to be and she can feel her heart beating in her fingertips, always a bad sign. Her skin feels watery and her hair is too short-- Lucretia pushes the door to her office closed behind her and makes herself walk over to the desk before collapsing into her chair.

For a moment, she thinks about retiring to her private chambers, where no one can find her and she can't say anything rash, but that's not an option. She needs to be available when the boys get back from their mission.

She needs to breathe. She tells herself to breathe. She puts her face in her hand and focuses. _Remember back on the ship? Magnus would rub your shoulders with his big strong hands and talk about his day. Lup would sing. Taako would make you grilled cheese and hot chocolate and Merle would offer you something to get high on, probably._ _Barry would talk about scientific advancements and magical discoveries till you were distracted. Davenport would just... keep you company._

She can't breathe. Lucretia chokes on her own breath for a moment, a breath which turns into a sob. In a moment of lucid thought she leans back away from her desk when she feels tears rolling down her face. There's no use getting her papers wet. Her chest is so tight.

Lucretia lets herself cry for a while. She's starting to get a headache. It probably would have been a good idea to drink some water at some point. She pours herself a glass with shaking hands and downs it, sliding back in her chair. She hasn't wholly stopped crying, but she's not having a full on breakdown anymore, so she's fine.

Because she loves to throw salt on her wounds, Lucretia pulls herself together and goes down the hall to check on Davenport. He's sleeping soundly, holding his old wand in one hand like a kid might hold a stuffed animal. She thinks of Angus again, and hopes he won't go nosing too far into her business anytime soon. Lucretia shut the door with one hand and went back to her office. She needs more wine.

She can't find any more wine (Need to take a trip planetside, I guess.) but she does find several bottles of fermented tea that had been sitting on her back shelf for… several years now? She remembers finishing them off at the end of cycles back on the ship, in celebration or relief or sadness, depending on the year. Now they were gathering dust in her closet, doing nothing. She could get more Kombucha at the market. It was no use leaving these on her shelf, though she might keep the bottles. That was a little bit of home.

She pours several of them into her big wine glass and curls up next to her desk, sipping the sweet drink and wishing it was possible to be awake and think about nothing. (Wishing it was possible to be asleep and think about nothing. Nothing is possible these days, nothing at all.)

She found herself mumbling, rocking from side to side, trailing a finger down her staff. It gave a soft melody for her to follow, the grains in the wood smooth and comforting. She's doing this right. She's doing fine. She'll get the relics, she'll make a shield, the world will be safe. _Safe_. She giggles because has she ever been safe? Not since her childhood, not since before the century. Her head thunks back against one of her desk drawers when she leans back too fast, sending a jolt of pain through her skull. It's not as if she didn't already have a headache. She scootches out of the way of the drawer handle.

_You could be safe. Safe. I can make you safe._

The light on the walls dances.

 

“Madam director? Lucretia?”

There's someone in her room, making a rucus. Where is she? Is she on the ship? No, this floor is wrong, this isn't the ship. Her head hurts.

“Welp, she's alive,” someone says. That's magnus. She takes a deep breath but doesn't say anything. Something tells her that talking is a bad idea right now. (she's shaking a little. Her head hurts.)

Lucretia sits up. It doesn't help with the headache at all. For a moment the world spins, and she's grateful for her staff, which was right there the whole time. She grips it with both hands and breathes.

“You okay, homie?” An elf, ears turned back but not drooping down. Not pressed against skull. Possible emotions: Light fear, worry, annoyance.

She looks up. Taako. Taako, Merle, Magnus. Oh yeah. The mission. She had sent them on a mission. And then… Lup. LUP was written on the wall. After that she wasn't sure. She probably had another breakdown. Oh well.

“I'm fine. I'm terribly sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep.” Her voice is hoarse, her words slurring together just a little bit more than could pass as professional. Nope, wrong demeanor, lucy, stop. She pushes herself to her feet and stumbles to her desk chair. “Did you get it?”

“The notebook? Yeah. It doesn't make sense, I opened it.”

“I did tell you that would happen, Magnus.”

“You're drunk.”

“I know.”

Merle pours her a glass of water. “We could debrief in the morning if you aren't feeling well, Director.”

“Nope, just, need the notebook, thanks, hand it over.” She takes the water from merle and holds out a hand.

Magnus takes a small, dirty journal out of his bag and hands it to her. “Cycle 99, pt I” is written on the cover. She puts it down on the desk with a sigh. She runs a hand down her staff. It hums in her mind.

“Go get some sleep, boys. I think I'll. I have things to work on.” She wants more Kombucha. She wanted to sleep forever. Most importantly, she wanted to reread this journal, and make sure not a page was missing. She can't lose data she might need later.

“You should sleep,” Merle says. “It's five in the morning.”

“ _You_ should sleep, highchurch,” Lucretia mutters. “ _You're excused._ ”

They give her worried looks on the way out, but out they do go.

 

She doesn't drink any more Kombucha. Merle was right: she's drunk and should probably be sleeping, but in leu of that she switches to drinking coffee and starts reading her journal. Inside she reads about capturing the light. Merle's distant relatives. The relics, and their death counts.

_Log one: Bulwark staff_

_11/13_

_Mindleton (small village near goldcliff.) Albert Hefner. Took bulwark staff and used it to seal his entire house off from the world. Not seen for one month. Died of unknown causes. Body searched, no apparent sign of physical harm done._

_4/22  
Mindleton. Teenagers (names undisclosed) Took the Bulwark staff. Not seen for one month 20 days. What they did with the staff is unknown. Two died of head injuries, obviously from blunt force heavy enough to cause bleeding. Guess: Hit with the bulwark staff. Two died of unknown causes, see description of the death of Albert Hefner. _

_Bulwark staff hypothetically still in Mindleton._

Lucretia grips her staff tight and flips several pages ahead.

_6/30_

_I plan to make this my last job.  
I fed a carefully edited copy of these notebooks to Fischer. Magnus walked in on me while I was doing this, which to be quite honest was terribly frightening. He's alright, though. I put him in a town called Raven's Roost the other day. _

She skips ahead again, passing her short dialogues on creating new lives for her friends, past the trepedation of Barry's disappearance and her worries over Lup.

_2/9_

_The staff was the easiest one to find. I've been paying very close attention to it. Fortunately, no one who has gotten their hands on it has quite as much magic experience as I do, I feel very lucky. For a human, I have lived a horrendously long time. Despite spending so much time alone on the starblaster while we were traveling as a group, I have never felt so alone in my life as I do now. It feels numb to me now._

She closes the journal. She doesn't want to read this. She puts it on the shelf behind her where it belongs, thankful to have it back in her posession. She picks up her staff, drinks the last of a glass of water, and lies down in her bunk.

The bulwark staff whispers about protection. _Don't you want everyone to be safe?_

_Not yet. It's not time yet._

 


End file.
